Tag: simple living

A Biblical Case for Simple Living

October 2, 2017 / Jean / 1 Comment

The Apostle Paul extolled the virtues of living a quiet life, and Jesus Christ himself taught that we shouldn’t chase after material goods, but focus instead on serving others and nurturing our faith. Indeed, during his earthly ministry, Jesus seemed to embrace a lifestyle of minimalism and simplicity, trusting God for his every earthly need.

While the Bible doesn’t command us to live simply, it makes a case that simple living can make us more content.

What is the simple life?

Whether you call it minimalism, essentialism or simple living, the philosophy boils down to the same thing: Eliminating the unnecessary things from your life that distract you and consume your time, money and energy.

Here are some signs that your life has become too hectic, and you might benefit from simpler living:

You feel exhausted and burned out
You skip church because you need to work, or because that’s your only time to rest
Debt prevents you from tithing or giving
Spending time with your family is something you have to squeeze into your schedule
You can’t find time for your health and your hobbies

Read the rest at Brightpeak Financial blog!

Link Roundup: Fall Minimalism Edition

September 22, 2017 / Jean / 4 Comments

Happy fall, y’all!

This week has been a week. Not a terrible week, but not a great one, either. It started out great with a super-productive Monday, but on Monday night our refrigerator started making unhealthy noises and, sure enough, by Tuesday morning everything had begun to melt and thaw. So that was tons of fun to deal with. I also had a lot of freelance writing that I needed to clear off my plate, and I’ve been feeling pretty run down all week, to boot. I kept telling myself that it was just allergies and that I just needed to press on, but today I’m throwing in the towel and admitting that I’m actually sick.

It’s not all as bad as it sounds, though. For one thing, seeing as how we’re renters now, this refrigerator thing is just a minor annoyance rather than the full-blown crisis it would have been when we were homeowners. And we still have our old fridge in storage downstairs, which we were already using for overflow (our apartment fridge was pretty small), so we just had to tote all our food down there. The replacement fridge won’t arrive for another two weeks, and having to run up and down the stairs all the time to get our food is less than convenient, but I’m just thankful that that’s the biggest thing we’ve got to worry about in this situation.

At any rate, I had a thoughtful post all planned out for this week, but here are some links relating to minimalism and simple living instead, because keeping it simple is all I’ve got the energy for.

The Minimalists are giving away two of their books, including Everything That Remains, which has been on my wish list since I watched their documentary earlier this year. Click here and scroll down a bit for details on how to download free PDF versions of the books. It’s easy and doesn’t even require signing up for anything. (PS – that Amazon link is an affiliate link. If you decide to buy a Kindle version or a hard copy of that book, if you get it through that link, I’ll get a small commission that will go toward supporting this site, and you’ll get my gratitude as well as a great book.)

A new phase of Project 333 begins in October, and I’m hopping on the train–or trying to board, at any rate. If you don’t know what that is, the short version is that it’s a capsule wardrobe challenge in which you try to live with just 33 pieces (including shoes, jewelry and accessories; workout clothes, lounging-around-the-house clothes, sleepwear and underwear don’t count) for three months. I spent this morning cleaning out my closet and figuring out my fall capsule wardrobe and managed to get it down to 42 items, but I’ve still got a week left to decide what else to eliminate.

This is a good post by Joshua Becker examining whether a good criteria for deciding what to keep or discard from your life is whether or not it “sparks joy.” I have thoughts and opinions about his thoughts and opinions regarding the Konmari method, and that was originally going to comprise this week’s post. But I couldn’t muster the energy to write about it coherently, which is why now you’re getting links. But his post is worth a read.

Finally, you probably already know about Emily P. Freeman’s new podcast, The Next Right Thing, but I thought I should mention it just in case you missed it. This short podcast — each episode is only about 15 to 20 minutes long — is meant to help “create a little space for your soul to breathe so you can discern your next right thing in love,” and it’s so, so encouraging and inspiring. If you struggle with overwhelm and decision paralysis, this, my friend, is the podcast for you.

Do you have any relevant links or recommendations you’d like to share? Be sure to leave them in the comments! And let me know if you want to tackle Project 333 with me, too. Meanwhile, I’m going to spend the weekend with my feet up, reading and watching Netflix in between naps and drinking copious amounts of Throat Coat tea.

♥

11 Simple Life Quotes to Inspire Clutter-Free Living

July 11, 2017 / Jean / 0 Comments

Here’s an excerpt of a recent article I wrote for Brightpeak Financial blog.

***

You’ve cleaned out your closets, given truckloads of stuff to charity, streamlined your schedule and seen firsthand how living with less can free up time, money and energy that you can use to focus on what truly matters. But no matter how great the rewards of simpler living, it isn’t always easy to maintain a clutter-free lifestyle.

Here are 11 simple life quotes to help you stay focused and motivated when the clutter starts creeping back in.

1. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” —Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

2. “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?… But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” —Matthew 6:25-27,33

3. “The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life.” —Marie Kondo, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up

4. “The best way to give yourself a raise is to spend less money.” —Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything that Remains

5. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” —Matthew 6:34

Read the rest at Brightpeak Financial!

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!

A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.

In Praise of a Quiet Life (Link Roundup)

April 4, 2017 / Jean / 0 Comments

“…make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, ¹²so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

I was really hoping to resume my regular blogging schedule this month, but realistically it will probably be next month before that happens. But I wanted to check in and let y’all know that I haven’t fallen off of the planet.

Transitions are hard, y’all, and while this one is the answer to a lot of prayer and a whole lot of waiting in faith, I’m going to be real and remind myself (and anyone else reading this who’s dealing with hard times as the result of blessing and answered prayer) that it’s okay to acknowledge the hard, that doing so doesn’t make you ungrateful. I am SO thankful that all of this is happening right now and yet that doesn’t change the fact that my husband and I are exhausted and overwhelmed and there is still so much more to be done and I cried this morning and told God I can’t do it anymore before He helped me buck up and put on my big girl pants and come up with an action plan that I can live with.

At any rate, in the midst of a flurry of busy with the end looking a long way off, I’m longing to get back to a simple, slow, quiet life, and these links are all about doing just that.

What I Learned from Adopting a Simple-Living Mentality – Back in February I had the privilege of interviewing Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist for an article for Brightpeak Financial. Here’s a sneak peek:

A simple living mindset can mean different things to different people. According to Becker, simple living is “about deciding what in life is most important and then redirecting our resources towards that.” Getting rid of clutter and reducing material possessions is a big part of it, but it doesn’t stop there.

For Becker, it also meant cleaning up how he spends his time. He not only got rid of most of his television sets, but also vastly reduced the time he spent watching TV. His family also downsized their home to one that cost less in both time and money to maintain.

While some of these changes may seem drastic, it still came as a surprise to Becker how this mindset changed his life for the better.

Head here to read the rest.

What if All I Want is a Mediocre Life? – This post at A Life in Progress speaks so directly to the heart of everything God’s been dealing with in my heart for the last year and a half or so that if you take out all the parts about motherhood I could have written it myself. Seriously, y’all, I think it’s time to stop telling our kids (and ourselves, for that matter) that they have to aspire to lives of greatness and instead that they should aspire to lives of satisfaction and contentment–and that if that means lives of quiet domesticity and small, behind-the-scenes contributions, that’s completely okay.

And a book rec: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown – Like the post above, this book is about everything I’ve been trying to do by editing my life over the last couple of years. For me, while this book had some things that I can apply to help me tweak my efforts to streamline my life, it was less of a revelation and more validation of my determination to turn my back on a life of hustle. But if you’re stuck in hustle mode and feeling overextended and overwhelmed I highly recommend giving this book a look-see (and if, like me, you’ve made it your aim to stop hustling and slow down but are wondering if that makes you selfish, definitely read this book).

I’m hoping to get an April issue of Daydreamer Dispatch out later this week (…maybe), so if you’d like to know more about both what and how we’re doing, scroll to the bottom of this post or click the link in the sidebar to make sure you’re signed up.

That’s all for now. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to regular posting in another couple of weeks, but don’t be shocked if that doesn’t happen. In the meantime, thanks for hanging in there.

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

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What I Learned This Winter

February 28, 2017 / Jean / 7 Comments

This week I’m pausing to join Emily Freeman and her community of readers in talking about what I learned this season. And I’m glad this has come up because this winter had quite a lot to teach me, lessons both big and small (and a little scary).

Apparently you can have two words. Remember back in January when I said I originally thought my One Word for this year was “faithfulness,” but then I felt God nudging me to switch it to “abandon”? Apparently, I’m supposed to focus on both, because no sooner did I set aside “faithfulness” as my word than I started getting bombarded with lessons on both God’s faithfulness and faithful obedience. Like, every single Bible study I’ve done since the beginning of the year has emphasized these things. I’ll be talking about this more in the months to come because I’ve learned a lot on this topic and there’s too much to go into in this post.
I’m actually capable of keeping a clean house. Y’all, I’ve never been able to get this whole housekeeping thing down, and I’m over 40. I figured that at this point, this leopard ain’t going to change her spots, and I was working on accepting this about myself. But this year I kept feeling a nudge to just do my best to be a faithful steward of my home (see item 1 above), and so far, I’ve been doing pretty good. I’m not going to be winning any Good Housekeeping seals of approval or anything, but I’ve managed to pick up some habits that are helping me stay on top of things, and I’m finding that this thing I’ve struggled with all my life is really not that hard. I don’t know if I just reached an age where the adulting switch finally flipped to ON of its own accord or if it’s something else that just clicked into place for me, but something has suddenly transformed me into a halfway decent housekeeper.And I’m not sure what it says about me that this, more than anything else I’ve done — more than getting a publishing deal for my novel series, more than losing weight and keeping it off, more than running a business — makes me feel like a capable, competent grown-up.
Small, faithful steps can accomplish much. Seriously, it never ceases to amaze me what just whittling away at something for 15 minutes a day can accomplish. That’s how I’ve managed to stay consistent (so far, this year) with updating this blog regularly. It’s how my next book is getting plotted and planned (and most likely will also get written). It’s how the sorting and packing is getting done. And it’s also how my house is getting cleaned — not necessarily 15 consecutive minutes a day, but just a few minutes here and there throughout each day. You can fit just about anything you really want to get done into your day if you do it in small bites, and while those tiny bites might feel futile and pointless at first, you’ll be amazed by how quickly they add up to big accomplishments.
I’ve learned a lot about English and Irish history. My husband is reading The English and Their History by Robert Tombs, and it’s put him in the mood to watch these documentary series about English and Irish castles on Netflix, both of which are heavily focused on medieval history. It’s all pretty fascinating. I can’t say I’m retaining a lot but some of it’s sinking in. I can tell you this — it was all pretty bloody.
I think I might be a minimalist. After so many years of living in cluttered chaos and inflicting mindless busyness on myself, I’m so, so tired of it. The Lord’s been working on me for the last couple of years now to get me to slow down and focus more on what really matters, and now I’m at a place where I want my home to reflect that, too. I crave white space not just in my days but also in my environment. The other day I watched the Minimalism documentary on Netflix and it really spoke to me and where I’m at in this season.
I know what my next book is about. And maybe the next two books (in the series) after that. I haven’t got the plot completely hashed out, but I’ve got a pretty good road map and I think I’m almost ready to start writing it.
I also think I know the sort of freelance writing I’d like to pursue. A vision is starting to emerge of being more of a Christian living and home and lifestyle blogger — which coincidentally seems to be the direction this blog is moving into. It feels like a bit of a stretch and it’s a little scary, but I’m trusting God and staying yielded to the kind of work He wants me to do. That seems to be the direction He’s leading me, but I don’t want to presume anything or run ahead of him. This whole sitting back and allowing Him to control and shape my writing career has been working pretty well so far and I sure don’t want to mess that up.
Trader Joe’s Ginger Turmeric tea is delicious. The end.
I learned about hygge. And that I pretty much already practice it but it’s nice to have a name for it, even if it’s funny and hard to pronounce.
We’ve been living catty-corner from a member of a Mexican drug cartel for the last several months. This nugget of information came to our attention a couple of mornings ago when we were awakened by a multi-departmental law enforcement raid on the neighbor’s house, complete with a SWAT team in full armor riding in on a small tank. There were minor explosions, but no gunfire, thank goodness. It was all very exciting — a little too exciting. Lord help us.

That’s quite a lot of learning crammed into a couple of months. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of lessons this next season will bring. The weather people are expecting a rather terrifying spring, with the potential for both more and bigger tornadoes, so there’s going to be plenty of opportunity to exercise faith over the next few months. Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, indeed.

What have you learned this month? Tell us, or link up your own What I Learned post in the comments!

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

Save

Tag: simple living

A Biblical Case for Simple Living

What is the simple life?

Link Roundup: Fall Minimalism Edition

11 Simple Life Quotes to Inspire Clutter-Free Living

In Praise of a Quiet Life (Link Roundup)

What I Learned This Winter

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